When considering selling your home, there are productive measures you can take to prepare for your home to hit that market. One option homeowners have is to hire their own home inspector in order to be familiar with the state of their home and anticipate buyer requests. These pre-listing inspections may seem like an unnecessary upfront cost, but in reality, they have many benefits. In this week’s blog, you will find a list of the pros and cons to help you determine if a pre-listing inspection is right for you.
PROS:
1. You will understand what condition your home is in before selling/In a typical home inspection, the seller has to be worried about issues popping up that could cause the buyer to back out of the deal. With a pre-listing inspection, sellers can get ahead of any potential problems and be prepared to sell their homes. If the home inspector is thorough, you will have all the information necessary to make fixes before the home is listed and will make the deal flow smoothly.
2. You will know your home’s value more accurately. Understanding what state your home is in will allow you and your real estate agent to more accurately price your home. You can reflect any issues or fixes you have made due to the inspection in your listing price and will hopefully be able to hit the sweet spot of not pricing your home too high, but not losing out by pricing too low. A pre-listing inspection can give you a clearer picture of what that price should be.
3. You will minimize your stress. Selling your home is not easy. Whatever your reasons for selling your home, worrying about getting your home sold quickly and not having a deal fall through is stressful. By getting a pre-listing inspection, stress about the buyer’s home inspection causing the deal to unravel will be eased, as you have already anticipated any potential hiccups. If something does need to get fixed, you will have already handled it before you reach a point where it will affect the buyer, taking away some of the anxiety you may have during the selling process.
4. You will have a smoother negotiation. A home inspection is often the time when a buyer will try to renegotiate the selling price based off of issues that may arise. With a pre-listing home inspection, you will have already dealt with any major repairs that were found, taking away from the hurdle of having to make concessions once the deal is underway. It would be unlikely that any new issues would come up during the buyer’s inspection, so any negotiations made during this time would likely be minimal. The pre-listing inspection report will serve to give the buyer confidence in the home and the process will be less stressful for both parties.
CONS:
1. You will have to pay for an additional home inspection. The cost of a general pre-listing inspection is typically between $400-1000 depending on the specifics of your home. While this may seem like a large upfront cost, the potential benefits of doing the inspection often outweigh the cost if the sellers have the means to do so.
2. You may have to disclose additional information due to disclosure laws. Disclosure laws vary by state, and your state may require you to disclose all issues found in your pre-listing inspection. If you have the money to make repairs based on the inspection findings, then the disclosure laws should not affect the sale of your home, but if you are unable to make those repairs, the cost of the inspection may not be worth it for you. Disclosing the defects you were unable to repair could make selling your home much more difficult.
3. You will still have to participate in the buyer’s inspection. While the pre-listing inspection is a great source of information and provides the seller with leverage going into a home sale, it does not replace the standard buyer’s home inspection that takes place during a sale. As the seller, you will still have to participate in a buyer’s inspection.
The benefit of the pre-listing inspection, however, is that the second inspection should not present any new information. Obtaining a pre-listing inspection will allow you to feel confident about your home and the stability of the deal going into the second inspection.
While a pre-listing inspection is not the right move for every buyer, there are clear benefits to getting one. As a seller, the pre-listing inspection is a proactive step to take that puts you ahead of the curve and better prepares you for the sale of your home.
If you think a home pre-listing inspection may be the right choice for you, talk to your real estate agent about what your next steps should be.
